Any experience of chalet style houses with bedrooms downstairs and upstairs?

[mrsfarquhar]

We're looking at an area where there are quite a few properties like this. I've not viewed any as don't like the idea of bedrooms downstairs and we live about 50 miles away so have to be quite focused.

However we still haven't found a house (well we did but my dream house had a very costly case of subsidence) so I'm thinking we need to think again.

Does anyone have any experience, pros / cons what should I look out for?

Also, should they really be priced the same for square footage than a more traditional layout?

We live in a chalet bungalow, very popular round our area.

Difficult to say how the house might pan out for you but our house has 2 big bedrooms upstairs, separated by the stairs and a nice big open landing, and then 2 further bedrooms downstairs.

Positives of ours are:
The velux windows are really lovely and bright
Eaves storage, we have 3 access points with bundles of storage so is much more user friendly than a normal loft

Cons
Velux windows allow for a lot of noise and when it's windy here, you really notice it upstairs
It's difficult to get furniture in the bedrooms upstairs because there is hardly any full height walls for wardrobes etc.
We can't figure a way to get a third bedroom upstairs without putting in a dormer corridor but that's based on our assessment rather than a professional!

Other than that any positives or negatives have little to do with the fact it's a chalet more the existing layout which isn't to out taste!

ILs have one - it has all the advantages of a bungalow for them, but SIL can live upstairs where there is also a guest suite, and have more privacy. If all my children were over say 5, it would be great - no need to move when we got elderly.

We have one. Two bedrooms and bathroom upstairs and two bedrooms and bathroom downstairs. Works well for us. Two adult children upstairs and me and DP downstairs. All bedrooms are decent sizes and plenty of room for furniture. Full size windows although windowsills upstairs are narrow. We came from a traditional 4 bedroom house but prefer this layout as we now have so much more space downstairs. Once the children move out and I am old, I intend never to venture upstairs again!

We are in our second one. We put in a dormer in this house, and split a large bedroom into two. So we have three upstairs.

However, in the last house our master bedroom was downstairs and I loved it. Next time I'd design the house that way - a master suite downstairs. It made me keep the bedroom tidier (I forget about upstairs during the day at the mo), it made me go to bed earlier, and it's nice to have more privacy away from the children.

Thanks everyone, if you had a bedroom downstairs, what kind of outlook did you have ? I don't need rolling landscapes but I think front facing or the driveway may never feel very private.

We have two downstairs bedrooms, one facing front and driveway, one facing back and garden. We are in the front as it is the bigger of the two bedrooms. I admit it is a little less private than I'd like, but we are set back from the road and have blinds to filter out the sun nosey parkers.